Crysis?

[Feek]

So, anyone got it, what's it like, etc etc?

[Mark]

I keep hearing stuff about the PC version of this, and how demanding it is of graphics. Is it really so amazing?

[Robert]

Yep

[Garp]

I've got it.. Graphically its superb, though I'm stuck on lowest settings (7800GT don't cut the mustard.) If you've got anything slower than a 7800GT you may struggle, I get occasional low FPS patches too.
Game play is a very interesting concept. You have a nano-machine exoskeleton, which you can switch on the fly between adding Armour (default setting), Speed (doubles your speed), Strength (allows you to jump high, hit very hard in melee, and reduces recoil so a boon for sniping), and then finally Cloak (invisibility). All of them reduce a self-recharging energy pool when they get used to some extent, so Stealth constantly depletes, slowly if stationary and very fast if running.
Between all of these it adds to quite some flexible game play. You can Rambo it if you really want / are a good enough shot to do it. I'm not. I'm struggling with aiming in this. I'm struggling to get enough shots to the head. You absolutely have to be going for head shots, most especially if you're trying to Rambo it. Most of the opponents are wearing good body armour and you'll waste an entire clip taking them out if you don't get the head shots in
Because I'm crap at head shots (I always hit my targets though), I'm stealthing it. Avoiding combat when unessential to my objectives, and taking opponents out carefully and from cover whenever possible. You can only carry a small number of ammunition rounds, 300 bullets with the gun that'll probably be your main weapon; so times do come when you'll need to go all Rambo just to keep your ammo stocks up. It is quite satisfying having ended up forced to Rambo and die on one jaunt through a forest to discover there was a neat way I could go through the section all Predator like, avoiding most of the combatants but taking out the odd one or two. All the others would go for cover but sneak towards the downed opponent, desperately searching for me (I use a silencer so they don't know where the shots come from.)
The AI seems really good, with opponents flanking and working together to take the enemy out. Means you have to stay on your toes because there are always multiple ways through any level, and the computer players will use them.

I'm really enjoying playing this, but I have heard a few folks complain its a little too short. I don't tend to play as much games as I used to, I think I've probably sunk 6 or 7 hours into it so far and I believe I'm nearly a third of the way through. However stealth is a slow way to play the game

[Wellington]

Got it, the graphics set-up to the max, It is very very beutiful, not sure if I like the gameplay yet, need to spend a little more time on it.

[Garp]

I installed an 8800GT into my box last night. At 1280x1024 its playing on Medium settings happily, will push it a little more soon. The step up from Low to Medium is jaw dropping. So much extra detail, better shadows, rendering, texture quality, lighting effects and so on. I thought it was looking great on the 7800... this... wow.
Given I'd got a little extra grunt in the machine I dropped it to 1024x768 and shoved it on Ultra High levels. Oh boy. I long for the day I can run this at a decent frame rate and resolution. So many neat features, the water quality is superb. Prismatic effect of light reflecting through droplets that settle on your visor from the mist created by a waterfall. If you duck under water and come back out you have water realistically slowly dripping off it and it clearing.

Just been forced to contemplate some alternative tactics, going more towards Rambo than I'm entirely happy with just yet given my instinctive reactions are still not quite up to scratch accuracy wise. Facing an almost impenetrable base I suddenly spotted a large heavily armoured vehicle with a gun... Sneak in invisible like (ducking for cover, and switching to armour mode to let the nanites recharge from cloaking when necessary), then get in the vehicle and let all hell loose with the gun

I'm liking that in this game, it doesn't just allow you to play it one way all the way, it seems to routinely make me re-assess my methods and styles of play. Its hard to do sneaky-sneaky in a wide open plain, for example.

[Feek]

Is this on your Vista box, so you're getting proper DX10 support with that new card? And what's your CPU?

[Garp]

Originally Posted by Feek

Is this on your Vista box, so you're getting proper DX10 support with that new card? And what's your CPU?

Vista, DirectX10, AMD X2-3800, 2Gig Ram, Leadtek 8800GT 512Mb.

[Admiral Huddy]

I've read this is a single threaded application which is a bit annoying since i've just bought a new quad core CPU

[Garp]

Hmm.. I've not been monitoring that. I'll grab a look tonight and see what it does.

Bear in mind quite a large number of games aren't threaded yet, including HalfLife2's engine. Games need to be designed from scratch to be threaded, its hard (but not impossible) to make a single threaded app multi-threaded, however retrospectively doing that might add some benefit but it'll never be as efficient as it could be.
I'll keep an eye on things and see if there is any obvious CPU bottleneck too, I must admit I've stayed fairly clear of benchmarks and stuff out there for it.

Tbh, quad core isn't going to be a huge benefit over dual core at the moment, but within a year you can expect more and more apps & games to take advantage of it.